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collapsible-else-if (PLR5501)

Added in v0.0.253 · Related issues · View source

Derived from the Pylint linter.

Fix is sometimes available.

What it does

Checks for else blocks that consist of a single if statement.

Why is this bad?

If an else block contains a single if statement, it can be collapsed into an elif, thus reducing the indentation level.

Example

def check_sign(value: int) -> None:
    if value > 0:
        print("Number is positive.")
    else:
        if value < 0:
            print("Number is negative.")
        else:
            print("Number is zero.")

Use instead:

def check_sign(value: int) -> None:
    if value > 0:
        print("Number is positive.")
    elif value < 0:
        print("Number is negative.")
    else:
        print("Number is zero.")

References